The architecture of Palestine covers a vast historical time frame and a number of different styles and influences over the ages. The urban architecture of the region of Palestine prior to 1850 was relatively sophisticated. The Palestinian townhouse shared in the same basic conceptions regarding the arrangement of living space and apartment types commonly seen throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. The rich diversity and underlying unity of the architectural culture of this wider region stretching from the Balkans to North Africa was a function of the exchange fostered by the caravans of the trade routes, and the extension of Ottoman rule over most of this area, beginning in the early 16th century through until the end of World War I.[1]